


Where There's a Whip, There's a Way

by oroc



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, New Warriors, Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man (Ultimateverse), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, BDSM, Bat Family, Bondage, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dysfunctional Family, Exposition, Gossip, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Past Violence, Pseudo-Incest, Psychosis, Spider-Verse, Whipping, hallucination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 10:21:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5824834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oroc/pseuds/oroc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, a wealthy socialite had four lonely, unfortunate, dark-haired boys, and they never seemed to stay safe with him. Luckily for him, a poor factory worker raised four good, upstanding, dark-haired boys to pick up the slack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where There's a Whip, There's a Way

"Really?" Peter, upside-down, took hold of Dick's hair for the third time that night, because he had to be held still for the paint to be applied to his neck.

 

"Really. Real kidnapping. Bombs. Everything." And crazy clown people, mobsters, esoteric terrorists...

 

"How many times?" Peter, who was right-side up, kneaded into Dick's scalp. "I never thought being rich came with problems like this."

 

"Five total." It always felt okay to say this to the wrong people. A semi-professional dominator who moonlighted as a photojournalist was quite possibly the worst person to confess the details of this case to, but the danger ... that danger in particular, of Buzzfeed fame and renewed scrutiny into Bruce's adoption patterns, it felt good. Naked. "It was always about Bruce’s money. He blames himself more than he blames any of the attackers."

 

"Oh, you poor guy," Peter whispered, against Dick's nipple. Dick could feel the strain on the nylon ropes flowing from where Peter's hands and feet had hooked. Both hung, now, but Peter had free movement. "I'm gonna go easier on you this session, chuckles. No breath play." Dick huffed. "Don't be like that, boy hostage. We're going to talk about your feelings."

 

Nothing Peter said was ever funny.

 

"My feelings? Well, I forgave him," Dick said. "I." A silk rope was wrapped around Dick's midsection, and the rotating frame Peter's web was fixed around was made horizontal again, Dick-side up. Dick had fallen asleep like this before. Peter, below him, knitted a spiral of this softer silk rope from the centre, winding around Dick ever more completely. "Nh."

 

Every time Dick came to Peter, Peter covered Dick more.

 

-

 

Gwen was alive. Gwen was in Peter's doorway. She was not splayed along the horizon and screaming at him.

 

"Peter?"

 

She was not facing him from the ... buildings. From the skyscrapers' flat angles against one another, where it was always either Gwen or his Dad or his Mom staring right out at him, there and not possibly there, and Peter saw her there and remembered them there at the same time, at two different points in time.

 

"Okay. If you can hear me, I'm getting an ambulance." Gwen was dialling. In an hour or two, he would know what life was, he would not see Gwen in the buildings.

 

-

 

The stockwhips, Damian thought, were a bit much. Most nights, they had been tied to Benjamin's back.

 

Damian sat, as usual, on his mat in the centre of Ben's darkened room. Damian knew, from glances at the slivers of light in the little cavern and from glances under his blindfold, some of what Ben looked like, and some of what he wore.

 

Damian frowned at the first touch of Ben's, because it wasn't part of play.

 

It was a cup of coffee.

 

"I made this one for you," Ben whispered, and Damian felt Ben's cloth hoodie on his bare back, Ben's nose nudging his ponytail out of the way. Damian felt Ben's steel claws - his spiked gauntlets on otherwise bare arms - trace over his chinstrap.

 

"Do not attempt to court me, Reilly." Ben tutted pertly. Damian remained still, as this was his rule.

 

"I'd never. Do you want to be quiet this time?" The back of each of Ben's slivery silver claws slipped over a nipple. Damian remained still. "Do you want to tell me your stories? How's the coffee?"

 

"My mother's was worse."

 

"But I love you, Damian, so it's different. Love makes the coffee stronger." Barney-level inflection.

 

"That's ridiculous. It's better than Pennyworth's coffee."

 

"But not his loose-leaf teas, which you used to love."

 

"Shut up."

 

"No." The stockwhips were uncoiled. Damian finished the coffee, slowly, as these whips were held just above him by the man behind him. "I won't. I'll keep talking, and talking, and you're not going to move to stop me from talking, are you, Damian?"

 

"No."

 

"Good. Now, I asked you a question." One leather braid – it was bright scarlet, Damian broke in earlier to check - was wrapped around Damian's neck. He was not proud of his body right now. He was not lifting right now. He was not as -- "Damian, dear."

 

"I want to talk about you instead today."

 

"Good little robin. Sing for me." Ben's fingers - he took one of the gauntlets off, why didn't Damian hear that? Ben's fingers undid his hair, and Damian felt it softly spill over himself, and sat still in the dark.

 

"You took your aunt's maiden name when you were fifteen." The stockwhip coiled around his neck too tightly - Ben loosened it, and set both gloves down. The second stockwhip was brought around Damian's wrists, and an intricate set of knots -- easy to break out of, but pretty to feel -- were tied around his forearms.

 

"Mmhmm. I have brothers too, you know."

 

"You are fraternal triplets. There were complications in the birth, and you were raised separately." This, too, is nearly meditation. The coffee was decaf. Ben was a bastard. "You visited your aunt and uncle infrequently in your youth, but the other brother didn't. You were both being fostered by the same man, a family friend. Why did Kaine not go to May and Ben?"

 

Ben's hands - his big warm hands - squeezed down on Damian's over sensitized back. There was no answer.

 

"Peter is your elder brother by two seconds is like you, and a photographer."

 

"That's correct."

 

"Kaine is your younger brother by three seconds, is like you, and he is a violent criminal convicted of multiple vigilante-style mutilations. Acid attacks on corrupt police and homophobic groups, and a physicist."

 

"That's also true." Ben's teeth closed down --

 

"People will look at that hip, Reilly," Damian snapped, but Ben ignored him, and kept nuzzling along, chewing on his boy. The big blonde lumberjack beard was a bit much, too. Damian kept the safeword in his mind. "I'm. I've -- you have an adoptive fourth brother, who was taken in at seventeen years old. He is my age now. He is a doctor."

 

"Correct."

 

"I wish I could have...." But Ben slipped his fingers into Damian's mouth, hooking his thumb over Damian's jaw.

 

"You wish," Ben whispered, "that you could own a zoo." Damian choked. "You want a fleet of... Iguanas. Bears. Chickens."

 

Crows. Damian was crying.

 

"Oh, my." Nothing Ben said was ever funny. "Do you want me to sing my songs, instead?" Damian nodded and sobbed. "You have three adoptive brothers."

 

Damian cried.

 

"You are the youngest but you're your father's only biological child. You're ... wait, I always forgot this ... you're twenty, aren't you, Damian?"

 

Damian nodded, face creased.

 

"Your eldest brother, the cutest one, is called Dick." Ben wrapped his arms around Damian and pulled him back. His arms were warm. The hoodie was warm. His breath was humid. Damian fought a shiver. "Dick came from the circus. He accepts you."

 

"Ben," Damian said. "Ben."

 

"Ben is your friend," Ben murmured. "Ben accepts you. All your --" 

 

"No. Ben."

 

" -- brothers do too. Promise me you'll visit them?" The massage was rough, because Damian had been hunching quite a lot. "I'll be right here, supporting you, no matter where we are. We'll always be in our cave together."

 

"Nh."

 

"Dick is not going to find out you cry his name when I'm reaming you, and from what you've told me about him, I don't think he'd mind. He understands people. And you. He brought you up more than Bruce did. They'll all get worried if this lasts, Damian. My boy." Damian couldn't speak, because Ben's hands on his back cut him off with unexpected pleasure.

 

After some moments -- some breathing -- Damian managed.

 

"I'm not scared of them." Damian sat still, afraid. 

 

"You're never scared. You'll never be scared." Ben pulled Damian's head back by his hair, and tapped his claws one-two-three on Damian's throat. "You're invincible, Damian, and I'll protect you forever. Call your brothers tomorrow morning. Start with Tim Drake."

 

Damian sighed.

 

-

 

"Growing your hair out, huh?"

 

"I didn't really notice." That was a direct lie. Kaine asked him to. Kaine, with his stupid Fabio mane, suddenly wanted to infect Tim with the same lunacy. Tim was a professional.

 

A professional informatician, so in all fairness he should have been going into work with a few more pounds of weight and hair, but it was the principle of the thing. Of it all.

 

"It's good." Gloved fingers played with Tim's head, moving it left, then right. They ran along his neck and cheek. "You're waxing, huh. Real fucking good. Fucking hot." While Tim looked over the bottles on the dresser, Kaine whispered in Tim's ear: "Little brother."

 

"Nh." Tim was relatively certain, by that point, that Kaine had never killed anyone. Tim was sure that he would have, in the right circumstances. Tim was reasonably sure that if he ever did, it would be for revenge. The four acid attacks were all obviously him, and he'd plead guilty at the time. But the alibi for Octavius and Kravinov's deaths cleared, as Kaine was on CCTV at the time on the other side of town.

 

Tim, however, shouldn't have had access to that footage, and Tim only recognised Kaine because he was in his dom outfit. The black and red leather and the bottles on his belt and the stupid spikes and the bullwhip.

 

The fucking huge bullwhip, oiled and sliding and wrapping around Tim as he stood bare for inspection. One lonely strip of kevlar at the end brushed and threatened between his milk-smooth legs.

 

"I never wanted your money," Kaine said. It was a sort of ritual they had. Tim would constantly speak volumes in implicit little ways, Kaine would run out of things to say and stop and start.

 

"I know that," Tim said. Kaine zip-tied the bullwhip's handle to the braid looped around Tim's neck, and all of Kaine's 'tail' settled to a tense hug around him, the warm oil rolling off it in sleek, safe rivulets. Kaine knelt, and licked where the kevlar strip had been. "I know, Kaine, you're... you'd never...."

 

"Hurt you," Kaine said. Tim was fishing, but that was the idea. "Never fail you. Never let you lose anything. You've worked so hard." Kaine's voice had steeled again. Bondage and pain play was a crutch, Tim would happily admit to the right people. It was this Kaine, this sort of resolve, and this vinegary voice, that Tim needed to have. "So, so hard. If anyone ever hurt you, Tim…."

 

"Then?"

 

Then, as Tim's best friend explained, Kaine would kill for revenge.

 

-

 

Three hours later, Kaine drank, because discussing the matter with MJ and Aracely was essential, and drinking was essential for that. The birthmarks on his chest ached. The bleach scarring on his face ached, too.

 

Kaine was drunk. One-margherita-drunk, as Mary Jane and Aracely had christened it, which was like white girl drunk but through Kaine's brittle filter.

 

"So you've been hooking up for...?" Mary Jane needed the facts first, but she was collating those she had. "Three years. You're late twenties, he's mid-twenties. He is a...?"

 

"He does metrics for Fuckface," Kaine spat. It was his affection-spit. Aracely held out the jar, and Kaine placed a dollar in the jar, immediate and automated.

 

"I'll never understand how that app got so popular. So why haven't you asked him out?"

 

Silence.

 

"Kaine?" Aracely placed her hand on Kaine's wrist, and her other hand on the other shoulder, and fucking peered at him.

 

Silence.

 

"Kaine."

 

"Kaine."

 

"Kaine!"

 

"He's a fucking." Ting!

 

"He's a fucking?" Ting! MJ winced as she fed the insatiable jar. She was normally more careful than to just cuss like that.

 

"He's Bruce Wayne's kid," Kaine crumpled.

 

"Wait, he is," Aracely jumped up. "I knew that name. Which one's he? You said he was white, so he's one of the younger adopted ones..."

 

(Aracely made many others' business her business, and it had been good for her business, much like Tim himself.)

 

"Aha! Tim Drake. Youngest of the adopted ones.”

 

“Stop talking about him like he’s a fucking Pokemon, I love him.”

 

“The 'luckiest', says here. 'In common with all of Wayne's adopted sons, Drake was orphaned in an incident linked to organised crime when he was still very young. Unlike the other three, this did not happen while in Wayne's custody, but immediately before.'"

 

"So you're worried he's got Stockholm syndrome for you, are you? How?" Mary Jane had not stopped giving Kaine that shady look she had since the mid-nineties. "Don't answer that. He sounded pretty sane, for you, Kaine."

 

"Fuck you!" Ting. "If Wayne finds out he'll probably bomb me or something! You know what he did when Dick got taken in Cuba? He hired a bunch of fucking mercenaries and had everyone involved in the group murdered." Ting.

 

"Oh, come on, Kaine," Aracely stole his drink, "You'd be one of the family. Gosh, you're one of the family now."

 

"The most kidnapped family in America," Mary Jane stole his peanuts, "You ask me? He needs you."

 

"Please don't say I'm one of them, you have no idea--"

 

"Ohhhhhhhh," Mary Jane was approaching her own peculiar level of drunkenness on each drink Kaine bought and forgot about. "Big Daddy Kaine, huh? You were never that protective with me, and your FIRST words --"

 

"Please don't."

 

"-- TO me --"

 

"MJ, no."

 

"-- were 'I saw you die in my dream last night, maiden. Beware.'"

 

"I was fourteen!!"

 

"And I ... was not a maiden. Nor in any danger."

 

"I ever tell you what he told me, MJ?" Aracely had swapped couches to show off papparazzi shots of Tim.

 

"You!" Kaine was pretty much just barking now with no intention of communicating anything. He knew defeat, but he would not go quiet.

 

"No? No you did not, Aracely. Do, please.”

 

"You! You! Two! You!"

 

"'Bitch, my sweat is sweating, gimme that fucking water or I'll cunt you into the street.'" Ting-click. Kaine passed out. Or he thought he did. Or he thought he was going to. Mary Jane was not so silenced, but she was too happy at a swearing Aracely to laugh.

 

"They teach you that language in psychic school, Hummingbird?"

 

"Oh, go inject a weed." Nights in the Grind were sacred - Aracely rarely admitted her upbringing. "Tell me about - oh my god I totally forgot! 'Lobsterman'! Well DONE! The female lead in 'Lobsterman'! She’s you!"

 

"Yeah well done," Kaine said, with furious affection and some relief.

 

"'Lobsterman'," Mary Jane replied, low, saturnine. The light drained from her face. "'Lobsterman'. The Hellbound Herculean Homarine Homo sapiens. And I'm his 'Lobsterwoman'."

 

"Wait, she gets powers?" Aracely was peering over to Mary Jane now. Her given name actually suited her more than Kaine had expected. Even five bourbons in, she was graceful, pointed, exact. Lightning-fast. "I used to watch the cartoon. I thought Canny was always some damsel in distress."

 

"You're right. You're so right. I fucking wish she got powers. I wish she got dialogue. I'm filler, then I'm filled off-screen, then I file off. You know what May said? Because she was right. She said, 'you're the beautiful woman'. That's it. That's Canny Bliss' entire personality. She's beautiful." One more dollar... MJ decided it was worth it.

 

"Bet you don't mind the money, though," Kaine said.

 

"I'm getting a third of what the bad guy's son is getting, and he gets three goshdarn lines. One of these days, guys, mark my fucking words: I am not going to be the love interest. I am going to be the fucking 'Lobsterman' or,” and her next words boomed with authority: “Or some such."

 

"To top billing Mary Jane Watson!"

 

"To the Oscar for best whatever-you'll-be," and all toasted the future. Kaine was right.

 

-

 

"Why did you make these gloves?" Jason shifted around in his seat, as much as the ropes would allow. Miles sat on his shoulders, and Jason had difficulty hearing the response over the thick thighs covering his ears. Miles realised this issue, and hooked his calf around Jason's throat to release his other leg, whose foot sat on Jason's head.

 

Miles' shower gel smelled heavenly, still.

 

"I just repurposed them. They were sedation for problem patients before." Jason remained blindfolded, as was proper. "You know. Rich white kids who think they're street fighters."

 

"Hey, I was born on Park Row. I got two kay from boxing, you jerk." Miles' toes mingled with Jason's hair, flicking the white streak. Jason couldn't really tell the difference by feeling, he just knew Miles liked that bit. "Your dad arrested me, you know."

 

"You didn't know my dad."

 

"Totes do. Seargent Morales."

 

"Yeah? You knew him? What colour were his eyes?"

 

"Heh... You know, I don't actually know. I'm sorry, Miles. I lied to you."

 

"You know what happens when you lie to me, don't you?" Miles stood on Jason's head, balancing on one foot. Through the pressure, the pain, Jason grinned like he did on his sixth Christmas.

 

"I. Nh. I gotta make it up to you."

 

"Or...?"

 

"Or you put... 'it' in me. What's it today?"

 

"It's for me to know and you to find out tomorrow, Jason. Make it up to me."

 

"Mmm..." Miles had swung off Jason's head with the railings above the chair, and wrapped his arms around Jason's shoulders, his neck. Jason heard shifting ankles, and thought about Miles' ass, his beautiful, hairy -- "My Mom was the one who tried to blow me up."

 

Miles kissed his ear. The needles of the palmless gloves were retracted then. When Miles didn't say anything, Jason continued:

 

"We decided the story would sell better if it was the fucking clown again. I mean, he was involved, but only peripherally. Mom pretended she wanted to split the ransom with him, so he gave her the keys to the house, as... as it were. When I got out of hospital, I killed him. Put out a hit."

 

"You criminal," Miles murmured, stroking Jason's lips. "You dirty criminal...."

 

"Don't be unfair," Jason whispered back, before licking Miles' palm. "I had a rough upbringing. No big, strong role models like Seargent Bagpuss Morales."

 

"I think you're lovely."

 

"Don't be unfair," Jason tried to whisper back, but Miles' hand was over his mouth, so he didn't say anything after inhaling.

 

"Love'a my life," Miles whispered, sweetly. "You don't seem to feel guilty over this one, but I'm not gonna let you feel bad later, either, 'kay? You remember why?"

 

Jason's mouth was released, and he sighed out something.

 

"You decide what I deserve."

 

"Based on?"

 

"Your unbiased perspective. And the fact I'm damn hot."

 

"You are," Miles said, as if only coming to that realisation at that moment. "The Lego bird was for you, by the way."

 

"Did Ganke help?"

 

"We collaborated. I wasn't sure how to balance it on the legs. He likes you a lot."

 

"Why?" Miles palm again, but the needles came out into Jason's pec. "Hnh!" There was no numbness. It wasn't a sedative. It was too --"Straight-up MDMA? Pure?"

 

"Everyone likes you, you big jerk." Miles took off the gloves and slid his fingertips down Jason's sides, then his nails down his nipples, somehow feeling more intense already. Jason's noises were his own, inimitable. "The bird's a jay."

 

"I like you," Jason murmured. "Will you go out with me?" It was the seventy-fifth time he'd said that.

 

"Sure, you free now?"

 

"Uh huh."

 

"Tough, it was a sedative." Miles picked Jason up and brought him to the bedroom. "Big day tomorrow. Go sleep."

 

"Oh - huff! kay." Head buzzing from what he'd decided the distilled water injected into him was, Jason drifted off in seconds.

 

-

 

Bruce had honestly wanted to do some good.

 

Bruce saw what happened to him happen to Dick. Bruce had survived through the love of a father and coincidental billions. He wanted that for Dick.

 

Bruce saw what happened to his car tires -- the best car tires, which he'd custom-built to be unstealable -- and let a twelve year-old kick his ass before adopting him.

 

Bruce saw what happened to him happen to Tim, only slower.

 

Then he had another son, beautiful and fierce, and everything Bruce had done for twenty-thirty years had been motivated by love.

 

"No," his friend interrupted. "You can't tell me that."

 

"We've been dancing at this for years, haven't we?"

 

"Dancing at what, Bruce?"

 

"Us."

 

"Bruce, there was never an 'us' because I love my wife, and I don't want to know what 'hints' you imagined to say what you just said," Ben snapped, on the edge of shouting. "And it wasn't 'love' that killed Jack Napier."

 

"I... everyone he could have killed...." Bruce gripped his face.

 

"There was a death warrant out for him from the government anyway. Same with Dent. Same with --"

 

"Don't... mention Talia, please. I know that one. They're on me, I know. All of the acts... all of the violence, that's on me. My poor security. My not thinking."

 

"You can't do this stuff when you still don't know what the difference between vengeance and justice is." Ben was tempted to go further, but if he brought up the fact that Talia was still alive, Bruce might have brought up Miles, and Ben couldn't fight that.

 

"I agree, sir."

 

"I damn well can, I --"

 

"Thanks, Alfred."

 

"Master Ben. The brownies will be a few minutes yet, but your Lady has just been let through the front gates."

 

"You made brownies?" Ben Parker lit up, same as always. He had lit up at the mention of brownies since Alfred and he had been twelve, and Alfred first made them for him.

 

"Alfred, what did we --"

 

"Don't let's discuss rule of law in the kitchen when we have company, Master Bruce."

 

"Are we having a war again? I hope it's not a war. Evening, Alfred. Evening, Bruce." 

 

"Ma'am."

 

"Hi, May."

 

"Hey, sexy,” Ben said. “We gotta have the boys here at the palace sometime." Ben invited May into a hug, and she lifted him up, just that little bit. After fifty years, she hadn't lost an ounce of strength. Who was it who decided to measure strength in ounces?

 

"Yeah, great idea. Let them find out where we got their pensions from. I'm sure all eight of our boys would all get along just fine. Especially when they find out they're sharing an inheritance. You remember how Peter got when Kaine came back?"

 

"Master Kaine is a galvanising subject for all concerned, or so I hear," Alfred chimed in, bringing the cocoa. "It is decided, then."

 

"Christmas," May said. "Here."

 

"Of course."

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song of the same name from Jules Bass' and Arthur Rankin Junior's 1980 adaptation of 'The Return of the King'.
> 
> What's wrong with Peter? What is Fuckface? Do you care?
> 
> For anyone counting: in this story, Damian and Miles are 20, Tim is 25, Jason is 27, Peter, Ben and Kaine are 28 and Dick is 29.
> 
> Bruce is 43. Alfred, Ben and May are 72.


End file.
